The game is simple. First, players will be assigned a Co-Pilot. You and your assigned flight partner will then attempt to survive an onslaught of questions. Questions will be posted in the thread during any given 'Mission'.

I will post the list of assigned co-pilots in the thread, and give you at least 24hrs notice before a new 'Mission' commences. However, in this game, a mission could be any specified window - it might be midnight to midnight, it might be across more than one day, it could even just be a few hours! Each mission will probably be in a different time window and of a different length*. The notice period before a mission will also allow you to get to know your new co-pilot!

During a Mission, I will post questions in this thread. These questions will be of completely varying difficulty and theme. The first person to reply to my question with the correct answer gains one point for their pairing i.e. they and their co-pilot will gain a point. So the best kind of co-pilot, is someone who can be online at times that you cannot.

The number of questions in each mission, and when they get asked during the mission, will vary* and I shall not make any promises or guarantees as to either of these, though I shall do my best to be random and as inconsistent as possible, so as to be as fair as possible.

Any posts that can be seen to have been edited will not be counted as answers.

Once a mission is complete, I shall tally up the scores each pair has earned, and post a leaderboard. The pairs in the top half of the table will all land safely, ready to face another mission.

The pairs in the bottom half of the table will be forced to circle the air base - and make a crucial decision...

Each pilot will be asked to PM me as to whether they wish to press the EJECTOR SEAT button, which will send their co-pilot to their death, thus removing them from the game. However, if both players decide to press the EJECTOR SEAT button, then the mechanism will freeze, and the plane will crash, killing both pilots.

(A failure to reply is counted as a choice not to eject one's co-pilot - however, if both co-pilots in a pair fail to reply, their plane will mysteriously vanish.)

The only sure-fire way to survive is for both pilots to agree to leave the button alone. However, if a pilot ejects their co-pilot and lands their plane, they will receive a Mark of Dishonour. If a pilot accumulates two Marks of Dishonour, they will be suspended from the next mission. (This sounds like a bad thing, but it is not - because you'll be allowed to fly again in the mission following that. Essentially, this allows you to skip a round, safe in the knowledge that your place in the following round is assured!) They will be restored to the mission line-up again after serving their suspension.

(At a certain point, when the game has too few participants left, Marks of Dishonour will be disregarded.)

Once all the co-pilots in the bottom half of the leaderboard have made their decision, then the surviving pilots will be assigned new co-pilots and a new mission will be posted. We will continue the flying missions until we have our Champion Pilots!

(This squadron doesn't allow pilots to fly solo; therefore, if after some pilots have been eliminated, we are left with an odd number of remaining participants [not including any pilots that are sitting out the current mission due to Marks of Dishonour], then one pilot will be eliminated. This will be the pilot who has individually scored the fewest number of points throughout the game. Hopefully this won't be necessary, though!)

So, ladies and gentlemen...

Sign-ups will close at some point on Saturday, with the first mission being an extra-long mission covering both Sunday and Monday, so as to not leave anyone out.

As the winner of the Beach Volleyball, Drumstick was declared Top Gun. He can use his power in one of two ways:

You can either play your Top Gun status before a Mission - and by doing so, you'll start the mission with points on the board. The number of points you'll earn will be equal to ( 8 - # ) where # is the number of the mission; so for example, if you cashed in your Top Gun status for the next mission, Mission Three, then ( 8 - 3 ) = 5 meaning you'd get 5 points at the start of the mission. This could be a significant advantage!

OR

You can play your Top Gun status just after a Mission has finished, while the planes are still in the area. If you do this, you'll be able to make the EJECTOR SEAT decision for a pilot of your choosing. You'll PM this choice to me, and neither your chosen pilot or their Co-Pilot will be told that their decision was made for them. So you could use this power if you finish in the bottom four, to ensure that your own Co-Pilot can't eject you; likewise, you could use this power if you top the table, to ensure a rival is ejected! You could even finish bottom, but if you're confident your Co-Pilot won't eject you, you could use this power to eject another pilot in a completely different pair (they have to be in the air, though - you can't eject landed pilots).